Phonation Therapy

The process of producing or releasing vocal sound by the vibration of the vocal folds. It will in turn modified by the resonance of the vocal tract is known as Phonation. The phonological disorder is a simplification of the sound system that also affects a child’s intelligibility. To explain in simple words, it is the way children start simplifying certain sounds or words at the initial stage of talking. For e.g. saying “boo” to “blue”. They do not produce sounds they need to or sometimes start doing it deliberately to avoid extra effort.

It is important to take notice and work on this problem as soon as you find your child doing it. It is not a disorder and can treat it with Phonation Therapy. But it is always necessary to pay attention to the child. Make sure he/she doesn’t get confused with sounds since it can put your child at risk for reading-writing disorders.

The disorders “Articulation” and “Phonation” are often confused to be same by people. But there’s a difference between the two; articulation disorder is the difficulty a child faces at a motoric level i.e having trouble making individual speech sounds. Whereas, a phonological disorder is a child’s difficulty at brain/phonemic level i.e. having trouble differentiating one word from another.

Treatment for Phonological Disorders

If the disorder is mild in nature, it will disappear on its own by the age of 6 but when it’s severe the Speech Therapist/Pathologist recommend targeting upon not just the particular phonological error that the child is making instead focus on the entire phonological process. This method is extremely helpful and effective. Because when the child deals with each sound one by one, his/her speech intelligibility increases at a faster rate.

One of the most common ways of treatment used by doctors as well as parents is showing the child where exactly to place his/her tongue while pronouncing a word. Secondly, whenever the child makes a phonological error, repeat the word to him/her in the correct way so as to condition the child how to pronounce it correctly.

The result of therapy or treatment depends on the child’s age and the severity of the disorder. Regular therapy mostly ensures normal speech and sound production. If you think your child is having similar issues, contact a pathologist/therapist as soon as possible and get your child’s speech evaluated. We also advise you to go for other information on our website and learn more about different types of speech therapies.

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